Reising / Ntuli / Cooper / Baumann quartet

Swiss-South African quartet Reising / Ntuli / Cooper / Baumann will be touring their debut album A Million O’Clock in South Africa, Eswatini and Mauritius in 2020. The quartet comprises Swiss musicians Benedikt Reising (saxophone, bass clarinet) and Rico Baumann (drums) together with Thandi Ntuli (piano, vocals) and Shane Cooper (double bass) from South Africa.

For several years there has been productive networking, collaboration and exchange between the South African and Swiss jazz scenes. During their respective travels between South Africa and Switzerland, the four musicians have played together in various collaborations over the years, such as the Thandi Ntuli Art Ensemble, a big band with strings and full blast horn section put together during Thandi’s residency in Switzerland in 2019 for the Avantjazz festival Jazzwerkstatt in Bern. Shane Cooper spent three-months on residency in Switzerland in 2018 where he collaborated with many Swiss artists including Benedikt. This collaboration continued and solidified during Benedikt’s 3-month residency in South Africa later in 2018 where he formed different bands with several local players. Benedikt says “when it came to quartet sessions with Thandi Ntuli and Shane Cooper, the magic happened. The freedom we experienced while playing together was exactly what we were searching for. This had to go on and so we recorded our debut album A Million O’Clock which will be released this coming tour (March-April 2020)”.